GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Before the VanAndel Arena, the B.O.B and Rosa Parks Circle, there was Connie Elsasser and her Common & Gentry Carriage Co to take love-struck couples, newlyweds, corporate outings and excited kids on a downtown carriage ride.

“When I first started, you could literally shoot a cannon through the city at night,” says Elsasser, who recalls waiting outside the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel with “Tootsie Van Kelly,” who belted out show tunes at her namesake bar inside the hotel.

Elsasser, now one of four carriage vendors operating downtown, bid farewell to part of that past last week when her faithful Percheron, Princess, died at age 28 on her farm near Kent City.

“She died of old age,” Elsasser said fondly of the horse she bought 13 years ago after another candidate for her carriage business flunked out of training.

Princess had been out to pasture for the past few years, replaced by younger Percherons who carried on her tradition of adding romance and adventure to a night downtown.

Those younger horses, Tess, Pete and especially 5-year-old Covergirl, learned how to behave around people and traffic and downtown noises, says Elsasser. “She would babysit her and teach her how to be docile.”

For Princess, pulling one of Elsasser’s ornate carriages or sleighs was a second career.

Before Elsasser purchased her from an Amish horse trainer in Indiana, Princess had spent years pulling a carriage through downtown Chicago for Noble Horse Carriage Rides.

Though Noble had sold Princess because of a leg injury, the horse trainer had applied an “Amish remedy” that resolved the problem, says Elsasser.

Those years of experience in Chicago streets had prepared her for the worst downtown Grand Rapids could offer, says Elsasser, who has worked with horses since age 6.

“Come to find out, she was an angel,” says Elsasser, who also took Princess to outings everywhere from Dearborn and Ann Arbor to Manistee and Charlevoix.

“Trains, cars, buses, helicopters – nothing fazed her,” she said. “Anybody could drive her. She was very trustworthy and nothing would bother her.”

Besides being gentle around people, Princess also proved to be durable, surviving two colic surgeries and the leg injury.

“You can’t find a horse to recover from two colic surgeries,” said Scott Banga, Elsasser’s assistant. “It’s a miracle.”

Elsasser and Banga say they are not mourning Princess’ passing, but celebrating her time with them.

“She’s going to be the white horse Jesus rides with wings,” Elsasser says.